A Small Tale of Death
by Wolf-Kin
Summary: In the middle of a quest, a paladin gives the last rites to an unknown corpse. His subsequent musings on death...and life. T to be safe.


A/N: For me, this is short, and, surprise surprise, complete. As I was running through the Original Campaign, I was reminded of this one side-quest, and how I would have loved to have had it expanded, just a little...As with all my stories, read, review, and enjoy.

* * *

"You cannot pass," the golem intoned.

The paladin lifted up his hand, where a heavy gold band flashed against his pale skin, reflecting the light from the strange ever-burning torches on the walls. "I have the ring of Gax."

The golem's expression didn't change…which, Linu La'neral mused as she restlessly tapped one finger on the hilt of her mace, wasn't all that surprising. "None may pass," it repeated. "You must speak the password in the Masters' tongue."

From this angle, she couldn't see his expression, but she could imagine how he'd raise a single dark eyebrow. She _could_ see, however, how his shoulders straightened, how his head lifted, making him look even more impressive than he already was. "Thurth mog lama gat rag!"

"You speak the Masters' tongue. You may pass." The golem shuffled back and touched the center of the wall. As the gate slid open, the golem returned to its post, and proceeded to ignore the party of adventurers.

Geheris turned around to face them, half-smiling. "I do wonder what I said…" he murmured, the depths of his pale gray eyes reflecting his amusement. "Any guesses?"

It was their gnome sorcerer at the rear of the group, Boddyknock, who piped up, "Logically, when we find a complete history of these ruins, or any other book from that time period, it will be in the, er, "Masters' tongue". We likely can then extract a translation from the given language…if, of course, you remember what you have just spoken."

He blinked, then nodded, all glimmer of amusement – or even emotion – gone from his face and voice. "I shall endeavor to do so."

"'Course," Tomi drawled from the side of their ragged column, "_my_ money's on somethin' to the lines of 'In the name of the scaley ones, let me pass!'"

Boddyknock tugged at his neat little goatee as Geheris and Daelan lead the way forward through the gate. "Considering all the facts we have on this 'Creator' race, that might be relatively accurate. In more eloquent language, of course."

"Yeah? Well, what can I say? Sometimes I amaze even myself."

Sharwyn's reddish hair haloed around her face as she whipped her head around, glaring down at the halfling. "That doesn't sound so hard to do…."

Even as the bard and thief fell about to bickering, with the sorcerer desperately trying to adjudicate, Linu couldn't stop a small smile. True, there were…_tensions_ between some of them, and quiet distance between most of the others, but they _did_ work well together. She couldn't get the thought out of her head that Geheris had picked each of them specifically, chosen _them_ out of the multitude of mercenaries back in Port Llast's barracks. Chosen them for their abilities and personalities alike – personalities that, even with their differences, would meld together in a fight.

Her theory was physically illustrated as they passed through the bottlenecked hallway and into the room beyond. Two Minogons, their armor a rusty red-orange, charged forward from their own guard post at the stairs leading down. Almost as smoothly as a full-trained army squad, their little group deployed for battle. Daelan Red Tiger and Geheris unsheathed their respective weapons and moved to meet the Minogons's charge, taking the brunt of the physical combat to protect their comrades.

When the two constructs simultaneously opened their jaws to howl their strange, paralyzing song, Sharwyn's voice soared louder and stronger, drowning out the metallic screech, her own song sending a shiver – a _good_ shiver – down Linu's spine…and everyone else's, for that matter. Boddyknock took two prudent steps back, putting Sharwyn and Linu as well as Daelan and Geheris between him and the Minogons, and made the opening gestures of some spell or other, brow furled in concentration. Tomi – cowardly little _thief_ he was – stayed back as well, but Linu could see his eyes darting around the shadowed room, just as intent in his own work as the rest of them; just because this room was protected by a guardian didn't mean it wasn't trapped as well.

As for herself….She too, stayed away from the actual combat, letting Geheris and Daelan do most of the work pounding the Minogons into scrap metal. One hand remained on the hilt of her mace; the other cupped a bright ball of healing magic, ready to jump in if she was needed…not literally, of course. "Jumping in" would no doubt be more like "tripping in"…right into Daelan or Geheris, and, with her luck, making one blunder into the other's weapon.

The half-orc barbarian and the human paladin, strengthened and aided by their companions, made short work of the Minogons. Not, Geheris mused as he nudged the fallen pile of metal with the tip of his sword, that there was much strategy involved in fighting these enemies: bash them until they stopped moving was, sadly, the best tactic.

Assured that the pair really was dead, he looked up, his eyes finding the stairs leading further down, and he suppressed a sigh. Another level. Another _bloody_ level of constructs and gargoyles and _traps_….He turned and slowly studied his companions as they stood down from the battle, sheathing weapons and canceling spells. Sharwyn cleared her throat several times, one hand absently rubbing the front of her neck; Boddyknock counted crossbow bolts, shaking his head to himself. Linu tended to Daelan's wounds, whispering prayer after prayer to close the gash in his arm; Tomi fiddled with something on the ground in front of the steps, lower lip caught between his teeth, usually quick fingers cautiously picking at a wire.

Geheris nodded to himself, and tugged off his metal gauntlets. "We'll camp here for the night," he announced.

The others exchanged glances, frowning, but in the end, it was Linu who asked, "Didn't Jax want this done as quickly as possible?"

The paladin nodded, absently rubbing the backs of his hands, massaging warmth back into them after the chill of the metal. "Yes, but by his own admission, no one will die if we are an hour late. We can stop and rest, and be more alert come morning, and perhaps keep ourselves from being killed from weariness. We'll camp. Tomi, scout the shadows."

The group exchanged another round of glances, then the halfling thief shrugged, stretching as he stood from his crouch, twinning the length of wire around two fingers. Without a further word to his companions, showing just how tired he really ways, he wandered towards the corners of the room, where the flickering light of the torches failed and shadows often concealed piles of treasure…or skulls. Either way, it was good to know _everything_ around the campsite, even if they camped in a small empty dungeon room.

Just as everyone knew their jobs in battle, so they knew their specific duties outside of it, in setting up camp. After digging out their respective bedrolls and dropping them on whatever they personally figured was the most comfortable slab of stone, they turned to their accustomed duties.

Daelan dug out a small box of charcoal and tinder from his pack and began to lay out a fire, just as he had once been taught, so long ago on the lands of the Uthgardt. Boddyknock thrust his pack at Linu with an unintelligible mumble – something about potatoes and broken carrots – and moved to pace around the chosen campsite, still muttering under his breath, his arms waving about his head as he prepared to magically ward the immediate area.

Linu, after stumbling backwards from the pack being thrust at her chest, and ultimately tripping over her heels and dropping to the floor, dug through the pack for the items in question, tossing them in Sharwyn's general direction. The red-headed bard caught them – quite impressively, Geheris figured – in a dented pot helm they had found somewhere; none of them had particularly wanted a helm, so now it was just a pot. Between Boddyknock and Linu, supper was usually edible; all magic powers aside, the sorcerer and cleric could _cook_. As for Sharwyn…she couldn't, not really, but she _could_ slice and dice vegetables for them.

Cooperation. They might not trust each other with their souls and life-stories, with their hopes or dreams or fears, Geheris admitted as he settled down to strip off the rest of his plate armor, but at least they all trusted each other with their backs. It wasn't _personal_ trust. But they all cooperated, and they did trust each other in battle, and in the little things in life. Like making a fire or setting wards or cooking…or finding traps, in Tomi's case. Even Linu trusted Tomi with finding and disarming any and all traps; she might snip primly at the thief for his choice of career, but ever since he had stopped her from getting a jar of acid in the face, she'd kept quiet about his actual abilities.

_Progress…_Maybe, someday in the distant future, they would open their hearts and minds, wiggle out of the armor around their souls and become friends. Listening to Linu give Sharwyn quiet orders, orders the bard flippantly dismissed, he doubted it. _But we live in hope, says the priest to the princess…_

"There's a dead body here!"

Tomi's shout caused a mass inhalation, an instinctive jerk back from the company. Though he did have to wonder _why_ they were so surprised, Geheris brooded as he dispensed with the last of his armor and stood, heading towards the halfling. After all, they had been finding bodies in pretty much every cave and ruin they had entered, from the Prison district way back in Neverwinter to the troll caves just above them. He would have thought that they'd be used to the odd corpse and skeleton by now…so long as it wasn't still moving, at least.

Still, there was something heartening in the fact that the innocent dead always caused a murmur of horror to rush from mouth to mouth, always make the eyes turn sympathetic, then hard to hide the pain. The day a man or woman grew callused to death, saw a body as just another _thing_, and not as the human – or elf or halfling or gnome or half-orc or _whatever_ – it had once been…that was the day something died within. The day a fragment broke off the soul, never to be regained. The day the person in question became jaded and bitter and icy, incapable of warmth.

He would never, _could_ never, become callused to death.

"Alright. I'll take care of it," he called back, stretching one last time before heading for the corner in question, passing Tomi on the way there. Behind him, he could hear the fire beginning to crackle, could feel its timid warmth on his back, his shadow stretching out before him as it cast faint light to the room, brightening even these corners. But his attention was focused on the pile of rags before him, on the corpse that slouched against the walls in the corner. _Thrown there, I'll bet_…he reflected as he crouched down in front of it, his companions's relatively cheerful chatter fading into the background.

Yes…two Minogons would have made short work of this slender, delicately built male. One good backhanded swing…and he got flying lessons, right into the wall. Snapped the back, nice and clean. Could also have been that he was dead before he hit the wall – there were cuts aplenty on his form, deep ones that could have been received from the Minogon's favored great-axe. It was hard to tell, but at least Geheris was fairly sure he hadn't suffered, however he died. It made it a bit easier, caused one knot in his soul to loosen

In all the years he'd been a paladin, he still wasn't sure if this was the best part of his vows, or the worst. On one hand, he _knew _it was a good, powerful thing he did – give the forgotten dead their last rites, pray over the bodies no one else would or could, soothe the lost souls. On the other…it was bloody depressing, looking through personal possessions for an indication of what god the person had preferred, what god he should direct the final prayers towards.

Like it or hate it, it _was_ part of his vows as a paladin, and needed to be done, regardless. He idly fingered the smooth stone in his pocket as he studied the corpse, the plain gray stone that prickled with magic. The stone that could take him and anyone with him to the nearest Temple of Tyr in the winking of an eye. After he finished with the appropriate last rites, he'd take the body back to the priests in Port Llast's temple, and let them deal with directing it to the nearest Temple of Kelemvor, where it would be interred in the proper ritual for its race and patron deity.

But first, he needed to figure out what the appropriate last rites _were_; it wouldn't do to give a human who had revered Tyr an Uthgardt warrior's send-off. Not that there was anything _wrong_ with either ceremony, not in his eyes. But it just wasn't right, so far as the gods and the soul was concerned.

He was stalling, he realized ruefully, and closed his eyes, leashing his wayward thoughts. When he opened them, they were flat and clinical, all emotions locked away. Reaching forward with a slight frown, he touched the parchment-fine skin of the cheek, gently working his hands under the chin to tip the face into better light. "Elf," he whispered to himself. "Male elf. Dead for…" _How long? Body's recognizable, still has some flesh; hasn't decomposed too far. Still, below ground with no water, no moving air, no insects…Perhaps…six months? More?_ "Long dead," he amended under his breath.

_Elf_…Simplified things. "Sehanine Moonbow, goddess of death and journeys…and the rest of the Seldarine for good measure," he continued in an undertone, voicing his thoughts to make them real. One single death god for the elves, and there was the added bonus of knowing the general form of the prayer without having to dig for it in one of his books; didn't he hear Linu address her goddess each evening?_ But did he have another patron? Someone else the requisite prayers should be addressed to?_

Settling back away from the body, Geheris scanned the dead elf, studying the fraying clothing. Part of his training, so long ago, was how to infer a life from what a person had: from the elf's tooled leather boots, he read wealth, and from the wear on them, a wandering soul. The rest of the elf's clothing concurred: no extravagant silks, but rather practical cottons and leathers, frayed with time and wear…but still elegantly cut and well-made.

_A…adventurer? No: where is his weapon or armor? But if he was a wizard or sorcerer…_No way to tell after death. Lack of calluses on the palms might indicate a life without swinging a sword, but that did not then mean that he revered a god of magic in any way, shape, or form. _What else? …an archeologist? Like Jax's people? Was he _one_ of Jax's crew? _No…they hadn't gotten down this far, by the older human's own admission. _But maybe a freelancer…_

Still, there was nothing overt that pointed to another deity; he could get away with the basic elven last rites, and from the looks of it, would probably have to. He let out a long breath through his nose as he reached for the dead elf's shoulder to lay the body flat on the ground; given a choice, he'd rather be specific with his prayers rather than general…and that went triple for death-prayers.

But what must be, must be, he reminded himself, one hand resting lightly on the corpse's shoulder, the other reaching for the Bag of Holding at his side, where he kept most of the idiosyncratic ritual objects: feathers for Uthgardt tribesmen, candles and incense for most humans, holy symbols of most deities, silver flasks of holy water, and just about everything else needed for a small-scale field funeral. _Silk sheets…_he recalled as he began to slide the corpse down the wall, onto its back. _Silk sheets, preferably in silver. Holy water…and I _think_ that's…What in the Nine Hells!_

It wasn't lying flat. He stared at it in abject confusion for a long minute. Yes, the body changed after death. Yes, internal organs could bloat and throw off the corpse's shape. But after a few months, even underground, the bloat went away, leaving the remains even thinner than they had been in life. Perhaps he was just being paranoid, seeing something as abnormal when it really wasn't, but he had a hunch….

Geheris slipped a hand beneath its shoulders, and smiled when his fingers touched leather, still soft after all this time without proper care. _This makes things easier…_he mused as he slipped the pack out from under the dead elf, settling it in front of him. A pack with personal belongings that might – most likely _would_, come to that – give the body a name, a profession, a history…and would therefore personalize the last rite's prayers.

But first, he stuck his free hand down into the Bag of Holding, closed his eyes, and pictured the long white shroud he'd stuffed inside gods-knew how many years ago. A corner of the soft, smooth fabric nudged his fingertips, and he tugged it out of the Bag, a river of soft white cloth. He whispered a prayer for the soul's peace as he draped it over the corpse, gently and reverently tucking all the ends under. Later, he'd wrap long rags around the shoulders and legs, tying the ends tight together, to secure this first shroud; later, he'd mark the elf's forehead with a moonbow of holy water. Later, he'd finish preparing the body for burial, but for now, it'd do.

The first honor bestowed upon the fallen – or however the Book of the Dead described it – Geheris turned his attention back to the pale tan leather, fingers idly plucking at the polished horn toggles. This part, learning just _who_ had been killed, was alternately fascinating and depressing; it was always easier to mutter a few words over a nameless body than to know the hopes and fears and dreams, to _know_ the life that was gone.

Yet he could not deny that puzzling out the random pieces, figuring out the life from the items left behind, was interesting. Before he'd joined the Order, he would never have guessed that he would one day be able to tell a man's place of birth from his shoes, or his aspirations from his hat. _Perhaps I should have been a City Investigator…_They did much the same thing, after all, though for very different purposes. But he hadn't liked the idea of hunting people for a living…and he was stalling again. With no further ado, he slipped the toggles out of the straps holding them closed, flipping that elegant pack-flap open, and blindly pulled out the first thing his hand touched.

A book.

A nice one, too, with bright brass fittings over the spine polished mirror-bright, a leather cover with the same style of engraving as the pack, and a latch in matching brass to keep it closed. No title or author's name graced the spine: _Journal, then_….He hefted the book in one hand, weighing it. Fortunate…and tempting. All the answers to the dead enigma before him, spelled out in the elf's own hand. No need to dig through the rest of the pack if he didn't want to….

Cheat, in other words. Ignore all the training he'd been given and be _handed_ everything he needed to know.

Geheris snorted to himself, and set the journal to the side; what good was five years of training and ten of practice if he never _used_ it? Returning his attentions back to the pack, he withdrew and separated out the basic camping supplies every traveler carried: parchment-wrapped bars of journey food, leather canteen of water, a set of pots and pans that fit one inside the other, small lantern, tinder box, a few stones that glowed pale blue light when touched, and the like. The quality continued to confirm the wealth of the elf in question; the wear his footloose spirit.

_Let's hope that trait doesn't continue _after_ death…_ He _really_ wasn't in the mood to track down a ghost and convincing it to go on to the next level of existence. For one, he wasn't that good at it. For two, it took a goodly length of time, and equipment he didn't have or couldn't spare. He'd pray and hope, but that was all he _could_ do. If it wasn't enough…it would become someone else's problem.

Next out of the pack was a more satisfying collection of thin books, well-battered and scarred. Flipping through one, Geheris noted underlined passages and notes in the margin; his Elvish wasn't good enough to interpret the meaning of the spiky letters – he had a hard enough time deciphering the handwriting, much less its meaning – but he could pick out a word or two in the printed words of the actual text. Some kind of…manual…on…artifacts? Identifying artifacts and classifying their age?

_So you _were_ an archeologist…a freelancing, wandering archeologist…But even albatrosses had their nests: where was yours?_

Theoretically, it could be just about anywhere in Faerûn; realistically, odds were heavier towards some city this side of Evereska, from Waterdeep all the way to the one and only elven sanctuary itself. _Not _too_ far – the news of these ruins wouldn't have spread too far. Not a small settlement, where the bonds of family and community are tighter: he has to be free to leave whenever he needs or wants to. _It _still_ didn't narrow it down much, and he wasn't sure how much it mattered, beyond knowing where to send the appropriate death-notices.

After emptying the bag of a jumble of equipment related to the elf's profession – rope, magnifying glasses, small picks and shoves and brushes, and a few things he couldn't easily identify – Geheris resigned himself to the necessity of reading the journals. What he was finding was merely reiterating the points he had already stated: relatively wealthy, a free spirit, competent archeologist. But just in case he had missed something, he felt around the inside seams of the bag…and smiled when his fingers brushed cold metal.

_A ring_. It was in his palm, out in the open, in a heartbeat. A simple thing: a wide band with a cut emerald embedded into gold. He rubbed his thumb across the gem, and it pulsed, then settled into a gentle green glow, only as bright as a single candle. He weighed it a moment, then tossed it up and snatched it out of the air, turning it over and over in his fingers like a strange coin. As suddenly as he begun, he stopped, eyes fixed on the inside band…and the engraving. "Beloved?" he muttered under his breath. "Close enough. Wedding band, then. Now, my dead friend, why weren't you _wearing_ this?"

It was possible – in many cases, likely – that the elf had another female on the side, one he traveled with, perhaps, and didn't want either his wife or his lover to know of his duplicity. But something in his gut spoke out against the most common reason, and he had learned to trust his gut, if nothing else. _Why wouldn't you wear a wedding ring?_

Well, why wouldn't a theoretical person wear _any_ piece of jewelry? On the road, openly flaunting wealth was _asking_ for your pocket to be picked or for bandits to rob you blind. He hadn't worn _anything_ frivolous or blatantly expensive, if Geheris's memory served. And rings when climbing, or otherwise working with your hands…he had heard of some careless mountaineers getting trapped and, in one memorable case, fingers ripped off because the ring had gotten caught on something during a descent.

Put that way…it was a surprise the archeologist before him had even bothered to bring it at all. _Devoted to his wife, then…_But if he really _was_ so devoted, why did he leave in the first place? _Devoted, but can't stand her and so wanders off whenever he thinks he can get away with it? Or maybe she _did_ come? …Or she doesn't share his passion for wandering halfway across the world to look at some old stuff but is in all other ways lovable? Or she was busy with something else?_

He couldn't answer those questions from the elf's possessions…and so it was time to see what the journal had to say. Placing the ring atop the white shroud, he picked up the leather-bound journal once again, and pulled the thin strip of leather the loop in the cover, and opened it to the middle.

Once again, he got a headache trying to first puzzle out the elf's handwriting, then putting the letters into words, the words into ideas. _Who ever he was, his handwriting is _sloppyBut there was more…another hand, to be exact. One that formed each letter distinctly and carefully, adding small looping flourishes to the ends of each word. _A journal with more than one author? This is interesting…_And familiar. The thought made him pause, trying to seek out the meaning behind it, but it was gone. Shaking his head to himself as his folly, her turned his attention back to the text.

Again, his Elvish was just good enough to pick out a word here and there, but not even enough to string together a coherent sentence, much less a topic. _Then again, it's a journal. Personal thoughts, probably. Sharwyn, or, better, Linu could translate this for me._ He almost turned to call her over, but something stayed his voice, made him close the journal and reopen it to the front cover.

_Ah. Gold_. A piece of cheaper parchment was sewed onto the inside front cover, from the looks of it, the standard "given to so-and-so, by so-and-so, on this-date", where the giver and receiver filled in their respective lines, along with the date, usually a wedding-date or birthday. And in this case….He ignored the receiver's line wholesale, recognizing the spiky penmanship, and focused on the giver's name, the one he had better odds of piecing together…the one he'd lay good odds on that it was the name of the elf's wife…if paladins were allowed to gamble, at least.

_That would be…L…I…N – oh, gods…!_

He sank back, staring at the name in quiet horror. All the nagging pieces snapped into place, the puzzle solved: hadn't she _told_ him much of what he'd been happily deducing, and more? _And that's two mysteries solved_…his head bowed, shoulders slumping at the quiet truth. It was so much harder, even and especially for him, when it was someone known. So much harder when there was sorrow, and not just reverence. But better, too: heartfelt rather than mouthing the appropriate words.

Things changed, now that he knew the elf's identity, knew that he had known him – or known _of_ him, rather: known him through another's eyes. The perspective on it all changed, the materials used, the prayers said, the songs sung…not much, and rightfully, it _shouldn't_, for all dead should be treated with the same mourning, but things still changed, when the dead had been previously known, in life.

Geheris bowed his head, and took a slow moment to let his heart mourn for the dead, and then swallowed the sickening feeling welling up within him. "Linu," he called without turning his head, without removing the book from his lap or even closing its cover. "Linu La'neral, please come here."

The female elf extracted herself from the cooking crew, walking across the floor as though across a bridge spun of glass – so as to reduce the chances of tripping, she had informed him when he asked her about her unique gait. He didn't see how it helped, as she tended to trip _anyways_, but he gave her great credit – and a bit of pity – for trying so hard. "Tomi said that the body looked elven," she began as she drew closer. "Would you like me to pray—?"

"Linu," he gently interrupted, rising slowly as he turned to face her. "Linu, I found this in his pack." He extended the still-open journal to her.

"Oh! Well, I can certainly translate—" This time, she cut herself off as she looked down at page, and he saw the recognition seep into her eyes. "Synth?" She looked up, eyes filling with tears. "Geheris, you don't mean…?"

He bowed his head, and nodded.

She looked…confused, as if even now she could hardly understand. Her head blindly turned to the side, her body shifting to accommodate her movement…she either went into shock at the sight of the white-draped body and his wedding ring, or she really _was_ that clumsy. Either way, he hissed through his teeth and reached out, grabbing her as she swooned…or tripped over her own feet. Either way, he found himself with an armful of elfwoman, her tremulous eyes filling with tears…and ripping holes through his heart.

He didn't – _couldn't_ – tell her not to cry, or even that all would be well in the end; it went against the very nature of his religion. As he soothed the dead, urging the departed souls onward to their final rest, so he now comforted the living, those left behind – it was all much the same, come right down to it. Life ended; that was natural. The soul moved on, into the care of his patron god; that too, was right. But the knowledge didn't warm the mourner's chill.

_No,_ he reflected, _going through the belongings isn't the worst part; seeing those who loved the fallen try to carry on – that is a thousand times more horrible._ It wasn't usually part of his duties; Kelemvor's priests dealt with the dead and the families, where his paladins hunted those who circumvented death: undead, mostly, with a few living exceptions here and there.

He didn't know the 'proper words' to comfort the mourners; all he could do was hold her close, and softly mourn with her. There were still things he needed to do; take both living and dead La'neral back to Port Llast and the Temple of Tyr, and from there, on to the nearest Temple of Kelemvor. He'd have to dig out a map of them – he wasn't quite sure _which_ was closest, but he knew that one likely was – and send a letter on with them to the Head Priest, whoever it was. He needed to finish wrapping the body, and present Linu with her husband's possession, to do with as she saw fit. And he would have to rearrange the fighting order of the group, or recruit a new cleric; she would need time to arrange the funeral, and to crest the worst of her sorrows. Time that she simply wouldn't have in these ruins. She needed time, and he needed to prepare to _give_ her that time…

But for now, he stroked her back as he would comfort a child, resting his cheek against her soft fly-away hair, softly humming old, half-remembered hymns to the impartial god of Death. The knowledge of what came _after_ was but a chill comfort, one that would freeze tears rather than banish them, and so it was a comfort that Geheris did not offer. Let her tears run free, now; later, when she returned, she would need to be strong and show none of her pain, would hide her tears and pretend all was well. But for now, they would grieve.


End file.
